- Scale
- 1:1
- Size
- 90 mm
- Category
- Painting
Sentry at First Light
A lone soldier silhouetted against a dawn sky, painted on a kahikatea slice.
Price
NZ$75
plus shipping from New Zealand
One of one
Ships from New Zealand, wrapped like it's going to war. Shipping: NZ NZ$8, Australia NZ$18, rest of world NZ$30.
Step one, step last
Primer to paint
Every piece starts grey. Here is what the brushwork adds.
True to scale
How small is it?
Photos lie about size. This doesn't: everything below is drawn to the same millimetre ruler.
About 3.4x the length of a $2 coin.
From the workbench
I wanted to paint the feeling of the dawn stand-to Dad used to describe: everyone awake, nobody talking, the sky going from ink to pink. So this is a single sentry, rifle slung, looking out over a parapet as the light comes up.
It is acrylic on a slice of kahikatea, blended wet from deep blue at the top to a warm apricot at the horizon. The soldier and sandbags are almost pure black so they read as a silhouette from across the room, but up close there is a little rim light on the helmet and shoulder.
The slice is about 90 millimetres across with the bark still on. It has a coat of satin varnish and a hook on the back.
— Sunanda